


Together

by Mohini



Series: Sisters [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mohini/pseuds/Mohini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crack of Apparition echoes in front of our small home as I shove our daughter into Ted's arms. I have always known that she would come for me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together

The moment I hear the crack of Apparition at my door, I know it is her. I grab the Floo powder and shove it into Ted’s hands, all but throwing Nymphadora at him as well. “Get out,” I tell him, “Do not tell me where you are going. Just go.” He nods, eyes wide. I have prepared him well for this day. My family’s ties paint targets upon us, and as the disowned sister of one of the most vicious Death Eaters in the service of the Dark Lord, I have always known that they will come for me. I hear the whoosh of the Floo as I draw my wand from the concealed forearm holster and go toward the front door.

                Honestly, I expected the thing to have been blasted down by now. I wait a moment longer before making my decision. If she had come to kill me, I will face her without fear. I silently release the wards on the door and open it wide. A black clad figure falls through the now empty space, crashing to the wooden floor of my home. Her arms do not reach out to catch her and I grimace as her head slams into the floor with a resounding thud. Reflexes honed in childhood tell me she has come alone, the nonverbal revealing charm a secondary thought as I approach her. I keep my wand out as I gently move tangled curls aside.

                Her face is almost childlike in unconsciousness. Her always pale skin nearly bone white in the moonlight that falls through the open door. “Bella,” I whisper, and any caution for my own safety is forgotten. I pull her into my arms, recoiling at the feeling of her bones through the dark robes. She is skeletal. I quickly close and ward the door before launching into a battery of diagnostic spells that have filled my days since the end of my Healer training.

                She is not in immediate danger, though her heartrate is low and her breathing shallow. She has been badly beaten, ribs cracked and both wrists shattered. A cautious corner of my mind considers that this could be a trap, preying upon the vestiges of familial loyalty to bring me to my death. I decide that I don’t care. Gathering her into my arms, I cast a lightening charm and take her into the guest bedroom, settling her on the bed and summoning the healing draughts that I keep on hand for my work with the Order.

                It is a long night, one through which I work quietly. She does not wake when I spell the skelegrow potion into her stomach. Nor does she stir when it takes effect. I place a constant monitoring charm upon her, tracking her breathing and pulse. Magic flows through me, as I heal new and old wounds alike, spelling regeneratives into her bloodstream and pain blocking charms into muscles long past the edge of their endurance. It is past dawn when her eyelids flutter open. “Shhh, it’s alright, Bella, baby,” I whisper, as she looks frantically about the room. I wonder how aware she was when she Apparated to me. A check of her wand during the night revealed that she had used an old tracking spell, one we had set upon each other as teenagers when we drank the nights away in Muggle London. I had scarcely remembered that it existed, much less that we never reversed it. As it had countless times back then, the charm had brought her to my side, or as close as my wards had allowed. It was designed to safely reunite us, regardless of how utterly wasted we managed to get ourselves. Apparently, it would also work in the face of grave injury.

                “Dromi,” she says, and her voice is rasping, and I offer her a tumbler of water. I wrap an arm around her to hold her up, and her head sags against my shoulder.

                “What happened to you?” I ask her, aware that her injuries could have come from any number of people, friend and foe alike. She doesn’t answer, and I know better than to push her. When we were kids, Bellatrix took the brunt of our mother’s brutality, believing me to be in need of her protection. I know how dearly it cost her, how many nights she lay awake and in pain because she didn’t want me to be hurt. The summer after she finished Hogwarts, she spent every night in my bed, and though I never told her that she talks in her sleep, I listened to her whispered pleas for mercy all night long.

                I hold her now as I did back when we were little more than children. During those long nights, she had often cried in my arms. Now, she is still and silent, the only evidence of her distress a slight trembling of her shoulders. She curls up against me, and for just this time, she is not Bellatrix Black Lestrange, most feared and presumably brutal of all the Dark Lord’s foot soldiers. She is my Bella, too strong for her own good and too convinced of the evil inside of her to allow herself any other choice.

                We are silent for what seems like hours, and she drifts in and out of consciousness against me. A disconnected part of me is aware that Ted will be worried for me, but I find myself hoping that he will remember the bracelet wrapped around Nymphadora’s little wrist. It is charmed to turn from gold to silver upon my death. A simple device, but one I put in place shortly after her birth. If ever the bracelet turns, a spell of protection I uncovered in one of my mother’s darker encyclopedias will engage, protecting my only child when I am no longer able to do so.

                Evening is creeping upon us when Bella stirs once more in my arms. “How long?” she asks quietly.

                “The seeking charm brought you here around six last evening,” I tell her. She turns a bit in my arms, and I feel her stifle a whimper of pain. “We’re alone, Bella, baby. What should I give you?”

                “Anything you have. Hurts,” she admits, and I summon a phial of the strongest opiate pain potion I have. I carefully drip a few drops into her waiting mouth, and she settles against me.

                “Can you tell me what happened?” I ask her, and she nods. She pulls away until she is able to look directly into my eyes.

                “Legilimize me. Will be easier. I was in and out for a bit of it and I’m not sure what happened. It will make more sense if you just go searching,” she tells me. I nod, remembering the many times we did this as teens. Bella has never been much for recounting the things she has experienced.

                I am surprised to find that our magic still melds together perfectly, and that I can enter her thoughts with ease. As I had assumed, things began as a standard raid. Somewhere in the middle, Bellatrix became separated from the group, and Mad-Eye Moody got his hands and wand on her. The injuries had come, not from a physical beating as I had suspected, but from blasting and crushing hexes. She had Apparated away when he had been briefly distracted by another Order member, some small shred of self preservation activating the seeking charm and bringing her to my side.

                I had long known that the “Light” used tactics every bit as harsh as the “Dark” ever had. Seeing my sister tortured, even having healed up the aftermath, was harder than I would have expected it to be. When I withdrew from her mind, I wrapped her in my arms and held her as closely as I dared. She was shaking, and it took little thought to realize that the panic attacks that had plagued her as a teen were clearly still a part of her life. I held her, petted her hair and spoke softly in her ear. I reminded her that she was with me, that she was safe, that no one could hurt her here. It took a while, and when she came around again, she was visibly exhausted.

                “How soon will they go searching for you?” I ask.

                “Rodolphus? He knows better. I return when I wish, if I wish. I stay at the flat most of the time. You remember the one? I bought it during your 7th year?”

                “How long will you stay with me, then?” I ask her. I know that this time, when she is nothing more than my Bella, cannot last. We have spent too long on opposite sides of our world.

                “I should go soon. Your husband will worry. Probably already has. I shouldn’t have come to you. I’m sorry, Dromi.”

                The words are spoken in monotone, and though I know she is too proud ever to allow them to fall, her eyes are bright with tears. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” I tell her, and the words are true in more ways than I would like to admit. “You need more than I can give you in a night, Bella baby. Are you eating at all? You’re skin and bones.”

                She shook her head. I know the struggle. It has come to all of us, what we knew as the Black Curse as children. As an adult, I know that it is more a proclivity towards intense periods of depression. Cissy, little baby Cissy all grown up and frankly terrifying in her own right, drinks more than anyone I know. For Bella, it showed through in self starvation, self injury, and addictions to more potions and Muggle drugs than most people even knew existed.  I knew very well that the almost manic behavior she was now known for was little more than a cover for what raged beneath the surface.

                “I’ve some nutrient potions. We’ll give those a go first. Keep those down and I can give you other things,” I tell her. She nods, and I know that she doesn’t care, that any effort I make is for naught in the end. I feed her the potions, cast nausea charms to keep them in her long enough for them to work. I go to my own store of potions, the strong invigoration draughts and mood stabilizers that I would never admit to using. I place them into a bag, add a few protective charms, and shrink the lot until it will fit in a pocket.

                I hand them to her, and she slips them into the pouch she wears on one slender hip. “Two month’s supply,” I tell her. “It should quiet the voices long enough.”

                She nods. I gave her these potions during our last summer together, the summer she shook and cried in her sleep every single night. They had been enough to hold her together then. I know that she is a fighter, probably the strongest duelist on the Dark Lord’s side. It’s likely that old Mad Eye is the first to bring her down since she last faced the wrong end of Mother’s wand.

                We sleep together that night, holding tightly to one another as we had when we were young. She still talks in her sleep. I wonder if that is why she does not live with her husband. In the morning, I run the diagnostics one more time. The stash of healing potions I give her comes with a lengthy set of instructions. She laughs when I tell her I will come after her if she doesn’t start taking better care of herself. We both know how unlikely it is that we will see one another anywhere but across battle lines. Things are heating steadily up, and I know that the confrontations that thus far have been mere skirmishes, will eventually grow large enough that a Healer will be needed on site. I’m one of the few who are capable of healing some of the things the Death Eaters throw about.

                Before she Apparates away from me, I kiss her, wrap my arms around her skinny frame and squeeze tightly. “I love you, Bella,” I tell her. She looks at me with eyes as dark as midnight.

                “I love you, Dromeda,” she says, and her voice is soft and almost childlike. “Always. You remember the promise, don’t you?”

                I nod. We had sworn that if ever the Black Curse took either of us fully, we would cast the Killing Curse. “It stands,” she tells me. I hold her tightly once more, then pull away to look into her eyes one more time.

                “You know how to find me,” I say, and she nods before spinning in place, leaving nothing but empty space behind.


End file.
